• A fascinating evocation of a 16-th century Spanish court, where noblemen and women expressed their feeling in music of a wide range of emotions, from the deepest sadness (usually love-related.) to merry joyfulness.
• The vihuela is a predecessor of the guitar, with a deep sonority and expressive tone.
• The duets are written by famous composers of the time: Josquin, Victoria, Guerrero and others.
• “Renaissance easy-listening” of a high quality, soothing sounds of great beauty and comfort.
• Delitiae Musicae, the two players, have specialized in this reper- toire, and are performing it worldwide to great public success at Early Music Festivals.

Music performed on two vihuelas (guitar-like instruments from Spain) was commonplace during the Renaissance. Combining con- trasting instruments was not yet the fashion, so instruments of the same family with similar sonorities were often paired in polyphonic duets - one instrument provi- ding the harmonic support, the other giving the melody and embellishment.

To recreate these 16th century perfor- mance practices and draw attention to an important part of Spanish Renaissance music, Delitiae Musicae, a duo specialising in vihuela performance, have created a programme of original vihuela duets and their own arrangements of solo music.

In line with Renaissance performance practices, improvisation using ostinati is fea- tured in many of the pieces, and a number of intabulations (arrangements) of sacred works are included.

The programme features the major vihuela composers of the 16th century, along with Spain’s most important Renaissance composers, including Toma?s Luis de Victoria, Enri?quez de Valderra?bano, Guillaume de Morlaye, Francisco Guerrero and Josquin des Prez.The focus is on Spanish music or music that displays a Spanish influence, to, in the words of the performers,‘evoke the sound and image of two courtesan vihuelists performing in a 16th century palace’.

OTHER INFORMATION:
• Rare repertoire, with new arrangements and improvisations by Delitiae Musicae
• Booklet notes
• Recording made in 2010

Credit where it’s due: Vihuelist Jesús Sánchez doesn’t hide the fact as so many early music groups do that these are modern arrangements, or that Delitiae Musicae has improvised selectively, according to rules of the period, turning several of the more complex, distinguished solo vihuela pieces into duets. This is prominent mainly in ostinato-based pieces such as Mudarra’s famous O Guardame las vacas, and harmonically static ones such as Valderrábano’s Música para discantar sobre un punto, where imitative textures invite alterations in a way that turns the result into variation form. It’s modestly and stylishly done on this album.

Just as sacred institutions of the day took from the secular to create contrafacta for religiously inspired performance, so secular entertainments borrowed from religious music. Intabulations of Valderrábano provide more intimate performances of Gombert’s Assiste parata and Morales’s Et in Spiritum Sanctum than a cathedral choir would understandably furnish, to which Sánchez and Manuel Minguillón Nieto (second vihuelist in these recordings) add works by Guerrero and Victoria. They include as well both an arrangement of Josquin’s beautifully expressive Mille regretz, and of the ornamented vihuela variations written by Narváez upon it, often called Le canción del Emperador.

It’s a program in varied musical character, with extensive differences in textures and tempos from piece to piece, though a reflective, melancholy quality pervades much of the music. Whether this was a cultural preference for the vihuela during its time of great popularity or a result of Delitaie Musicae’s program-building tastes, it deserves to be noted. The playing is first-rate, with even tone, absolute unity of purpose, impeccable phrasing, and solid technique in the face of the occasional flurry of ornamented notes. The engineering’s a bit plummy for my tastes, but not excessively so, and the close miking yields a harvest of overtones without any mechanical sounds. In short, recommended.